Owner: HWMC
Catalog#: 2CL-CHLT-053
Provenance: John Ferriter Collection – Los Angeles, California – John Ferriter (April 15, 1960 – July 25, 2019) was an American television producer and talent representative. The American entertainment industry executive was also a singer and songwriter, performing with two bands, including the Santa Barbara-based Stingrays where he was a frontman. The Stingrays opened for The Bangles, R.E.M., Maria McKee and Guns & Roses.
Lutes - Guitars
1939 Rickenbacker ‘Black Electro Spanish-Model B’
Santa Ana, California, a part of the Greater Los Angeles Area
George Beauchamp, Paul Barth, and Adolph Rickenbacker
Bakelite, wood, metal strings, ebony, metal
1939
Length: 29.5 in; Width: 9 in
Strings – Lutes – Guitars
1939 Rickenbacker ‘Black Electro Spanish-Model Guitar, Serial # C 288
The Electro Spanish B-models were introduced in 1933/34 and was the company’s second steel guitar model after the legendary “A” model (aka. The “Fry-pan”), also found in this collection. Like the “Fry-pan” it featured an electromagnetic ‘Horse-shoe-magnet’ pick-up, invented, and was patented by George Beauchamp, who was issued the patent in 1937. It was created to eliminate the feedback found in conventional electrification of stringed instruments. The body is made of the world’s first plastic; Urea-Formaldehyde (aka, ‘Bakelite’), black in color. The neck is bolted onto the body, a feature of the first electric solid body instruments.
This ‘pre-war’ model has 1 ½” wide pick-up plates with a bridge integrated in the body molding. There are five cover plates of chrome plated brass (non-magnetic) with twenty-three (23) frets consisting of recessed white lines. There is one octagonal volume knob to control the single adjustable horseshoe pickup. A metal name plate is screwed to the headstock with a “Rickenbacher Electro (logo) Los Angeles” label. Note the spelling is Rickenbacher with a ‘h’ and not a ‘k’, an earlier spelling.